This is good feedback. We're glad you guys enjoyed Season 1. We're really hoping Season 2 is markedly better than Season 1.

It's also good for us to evaluate the "downtime" between seasons since this is the first time we're experiencing it. Our original goal was to try 2 weeks (it ended up being 3 for various reasons).

Perhaps we will schedule less downtime between Season 2 and Season 3 if that feels better (so long as we don't have to do major changes that require a big time investment from us).

Would love to hear more thoughts on the downtime.

Okay, downtime is understandable, but at least give us the option to play in a gamemode that has the Ranked rules, just don't give out any competitive points. I am using this time to further my teams progress of mastering their heroes, but we can't when there are 5 DVA's and a Lucio on the enemy team. I don't want to stop playing Overwatch, but Quickplay is currently the most annoying its ever been. I can barely play without getting angry because of the insane multiple heroes.

As it stands now you wont be playing with your friends in season 2 anyway. You will finish your placement games (if you do all of them together) and then be outside of the 500 SR limit for groups.

And god for bid you play a game or two by yourself and finish your ranking prior to the rest of your team. Then you get to stop playing with them early.

As others have said, we need a Unranked Competitive Mode during the off-season ASAP, with the same rules as competitive, but no ranks. This allows people who don't want to play quick play with people stacking heroes and messing around to have fun in a more serious enviroment.

1) ***IF*** we take a break between future seasons, we should make sure there is some way to play the Competitive Format during the downtime. This could mean a lot of things. I think there are a lot of solutions to this problem.

2) We should re-evaluate the length of time between seasons. The current break feels too long or at least that seems to be the consensus, and what we're feeling ourselves as players... But the question on #2 is, do we feel as a community that some "break" is actually good or not? Again, assume we fix #1 IF we are going to have a break. The reason I am asking is that some might feel a fatigue from constantly rolling seasons. For example, do you want a week? Or a day? Maybe to either take a break from Comp or OW? Or maybe to try out some new heroes you don't normally play in Comp? Or should we strive to minimize any downtime between seasons?

Obviously, Season 1 and 2 are kind of set on their course at this point. We can't make Season 2 start any sooner and Season 1 is done. So I am more asking about how we fine tune this feature for the end of Season 2 and beginning of Season 3.

1) ***IF*** we take a break between future seasons, we should make sure there is some way to play the Competitive Format during the downtime. This could mean a lot of things. I think there are a lot of solutions to this problem.

2) We should re-evaluate the length of time between seasons. The current break feels too long or at least that seems to be the consensus, and what we're feeling ourselves as players... But the question on #2 is, do we feel as a community that some "break" is actually good or not? Again, assume we fix #1 IF we are going to have a break. The reason I am asking is that some might feel a fatigue from constantly rolling seasons. For example, do you want a week? Or a day? Maybe to either take a break from Comp or OW? Or maybe to try out some new heroes you don't normally play in Comp? Or should we strive to minimize any downtime between seasons?

Obviously, Season 1 and 2 are kind of set on their course at this point. We can't make Season 2 start any sooner and Season 1 is done. So I am more asking about how we fine tune this feature for the end of Season 2 and beginning of Season 3.

A break from what? Playing the game?

We don't mind a break in the REAL competitive scene, but we find the quick play format unenjoyable.

The only way I would have fun in quick play is if it was just a team death match.

Otherwise its just really annoying and stressful to have everyone doing what they want and yelling at eachother the rest of the time.

At least in competitive the hero limit just forces maybe 1 or 2 people to play a role they don't want to.

Which is ok, because there are people that like those roles.

Even if we are playing non-competitive 1 hero limit, we feel "ok" because it doesn't completely change the mechanics of the games and or matches, it just forces us to switch heroes more often, or to build around uncooperative teams.

There is no building around the hero stack, whom is just chasing around kills and not playing objectives anyways.

I semi-feel like if you introduced OTHER game modes for quick play.

Example, capture the flag or plant the bomb type maps(Dual objectives like counterstrike) this would give people a format they feel like they can play 'fun games with' because its not counter productive to the learing/training cycle of ranked play.

Or just release ALL The brawl modes when the seasons go down so we can pick fun modes to train in. (We still will not play as much because we really like competitive format and want to build on that)

The reason I am asking is that some might feel a fatigue from constantly rolling seasons. For example, do you want a week? Or a day? Maybe to either take a break from Comp or OW? Or maybe to try out some new heroes you don't normally play in Comp? Or should we strive to minimize any downtime between seasons?

Personnally, I think a break would be beneficial, for the reasons you mentioned and others. However, I really feel like there should still be a unranked competitive or something similar during the break for sure.

But the question on #2 is, do we feel as a community that some "break" is actually good or not?

I'd say breaks are generally good. Particularly if (as with the S1-S2 break) there are major overhauls in the system. A break would allow players to try out the new system (or new maps, or new heroes) without risking their competitive rank. Trying out the new features doesn't have to be limited to the PTR though: an "off-season" competitive mode (comp ruleset with no impact on rank, which might or might not award CPs) seems like a good idea, IMO.

At least, that's what I've seen so far: the issue is less about playing competitive for rank's sake, and more about playing competitive because the ruleset (1 hero limit, mirrored matches) is better than QP's ruleset.

we should make sure there is some way to play the Competitive Format during the downtime

How was this not apparent beforehand? Quite honestly, quickplay is a turdshow, i like the game way too much to even try this format, the day competitive launched was the best day for the game's longevity. 3 weeks without being able to play the game the way it's meant to be played, can't do anything with overwatch then. And no i can't hop on PTR - unexpected server error...

1) ***IF*** we take a break between future seasons, we should make sure there is some way to play the Competitive Format during the downtime. This could mean a lot of things. I think there are a lot of solutions to this problem.

2) We should re-evaluate the length of time between seasons. The current break feels too long or at least that seems to be the consensus, and what we're feeling ourselves as players... But the question on #2 is, do we feel as a community that some "break" is actually good or not? Again, assume we fix #1 IF we are going to have a break. The reason I am asking is that some might feel a fatigue from constantly rolling seasons. For example, do you want a week? Or a day? Maybe to either take a break from Comp or OW? Or maybe to try out some new heroes you don't normally play in Comp? Or should we strive to minimize any downtime between seasons?

Obviously, Season 1 and 2 are kind of set on their course at this point. We can't make Season 2 start any sooner and Season 1 is done. So I am more asking about how we fine tune this feature for the end of Season 2 and beginning of Season 3.

I love that idea! I was actually thinking about that this morning.

I don't think the break is the issue at all, honestly. If we had a competitive practice mode to play, we'd be able to play with a format we're used to while waiting for the new season to start.

But the question on #2 is, do we feel as a community that some "break" is actually good or not?

No. Obviously breaks are good but this should be left up to the individual. Despite the systems you've added on top of competitive format, there isn't some long running narrative or progression that must be respected here. Games exist in a brief vacuum of time, and this disablement arbitrarily pushes many gamers away. Sure I haven't played hots in awhile but I'd rather be having fun in overwatch.

1) ***IF*** we take a break between future seasons, we should make sure there is some way to play the Competitive Format during the downtime. This could mean a lot of things. I think there are a lot of solutions to this problem.

2) We should re-evaluate the length of time between seasons. The current break feels too long or at least that seems to be the consensus, and what we're feeling ourselves as players... But the question on #2 is, do we feel as a community that some "break" is actually good or not? Again, assume we fix #1 IF we are going to have a break. The reason I am asking is that some might feel a fatigue from constantly rolling seasons. For example, do you want a week? Or a day? Maybe to either take a break from Comp or OW? Or maybe to try out some new heroes you don't normally play in Comp? Or should we strive to minimize any downtime between seasons?

Obviously, Season 1 and 2 are kind of set on their course at this point. We can't make Season 2 start any sooner and Season 1 is done. So I am more asking about how we fine tune this feature for the end of Season 2 and beginning of Season 3.

Thank you for hearing us, I guess this feedback for s3 is better then having this repeat but could you tell us why we can't play the new map on PTR yet ? You guys are letting people @ gamescon play it but the people testing stuff for OW on ptr can't play it yet ? Doesn't seem fair.

2) We should re-evaluate the length of time between seasons. The current break feels too long or at least that seems to be the consensus, and what we're feeling ourselves as players... But the question on #2 is, do we feel as a community that some "break" is actually good or not? Again, assume we fix #1 IF we are going to have a break. The reason I am asking is that some might feel a fatigue from constantly rolling seasons. For example, do you want a week? Or a day? Maybe to either take a break from Comp or OW? Or maybe to try out some new heroes you don't normally play in Comp? Or should we strive to minimize any downtime between seasons?

1-2 weeks is fine for a break; Just make sure to keep the PTR environment healthy. Players who want to actively engage in a pre-season can do so there as long as you're willing to make sure griefing and leaving isn't rampant like it currently is.

Obviously, Season 1 and 2 are kind of set on their course at this point. We can't make Season 2 start any sooner and Season 1 is done. So I am more asking about how we fine tune this feature for the end of Season 2 and beginning of Season 3.

I don't mind breaks between seasons, but we desperately need some game mode with the competitive format (timers, 1 hero limit) during the downtime. Perhaps you can change the weekly brawl from LucioBall to a 1HL mode after the Summer Games for now. I really dislike Quick Play right now and I'm sure a lot of competitive players feel the same, and I can't find a reason to play Overwatch for the next 3 weeks if I have to play against stacks of Torb or Genji every other game.

I like the idea of a break; fatigue would become a real issue and I'm kind of enjoying just relaxing in QP right now and trying out my underplayed heroes after tryharding for so long. But at the same time, I love competitive and kind of miss it. I think one week, maybe two is appropriate. And ideally there is something or multiple things scheduled for the downtime, whether it's new skins or a big patch or whatever else.

1) ***IF*** we take a break between future seasons, we should make sure there is some way to play the Competitive Format during the downtime. This could mean a lot of things. I think there are a lot of solutions to this problem.

2) We should re-evaluate the length of time between seasons. The current break feels too long or at least that seems to be the consensus, and what we're feeling ourselves as players... But the question on #2 is, do we feel as a community that some "break" is actually good or not? Again, assume we fix #1 IF we are going to have a break. The reason I am asking is that some might feel a fatigue from constantly rolling seasons. For example, do you want a week? Or a day? Maybe to either take a break from Comp or OW? Or maybe to try out some new heroes you don't normally play in Comp? Or should we strive to minimize any downtime between seasons?

Obviously, Season 1 and 2 are kind of set on their course at this point. We can't make Season 2 start any sooner and Season 1 is done. So I am more asking about how we fine tune this feature for the end of Season 2 and beginning of Season 3.

I mean this with all due respect, but Blizzard really does tend to try and control how players play a bit too often, and I feel that's a problem here.

Rather than deciding based on "maybe players want us to make them take a break", I think the decision should be based on "how long in-between seasons feels satisfactory so that players will be able to register that a new season has started?"

That said, I'll give my take. One week seems like the maximum inbetween seasons. However, this is only because there's nothing to replace it once a season has ended. If a 'competitive practice' mode were implemented, I think that would solve both this issue, and many others brought up outside this thread.

If we had that, then 1-2 weeks might be ok, but I still think half a month is far too long for a forced 'break'.

What I miss most about competitive is having competent teammates. When you're rank 65, everyone you play with will be around that skill level, barring premade shenanigans. But in QP they just try to average out the team MMRs, so if you're equivalent to rank 65, they'll give you rank 35s to "even you out."

I was a support main in competitive. Playing any support in QP makes me want to kill myself.